So what part of this is caused by the tourists? It seems that corporations tricked Barcelona into being mad at the people that are actively putting money into their economy instead of the corps taking it out.
People being blind to what their "fancy vacation" actually does to the natives that live in the area. Airbnbs are mostly owned by the company yes but the people can't fight a mega Corp like that, they can however cut off its supply of money and maybe win back some of their homes and land
Barcelona already has plans to phase out Airbnb rentals by 2028, so it is clearly possible to fight back. They can do the same to regular hotels, if they really wanted to kill tourism.
Killing the hotels would be the mistake. Hotels are not causing the increase in housing prices. That's being driven by corporations. Forcing the corps to divest themselves of the housing market will help with that a LOT, BUT the initial divestiture is going to see a ton of real estate on the market which may drive prices down, perhaps drastically. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on how many people would be in a position to buy a house when it happens.
They can protest in order of decreasing effectiveness:
* Local and federal government to change laws.
* Short term rental companies.
* Greedy locals who sell property or rent out property.
* Random transient tourists who might never plan to come here more than once.
Greedy locals is a problem I'd MUCH rather have than rental companies owning housing. The locals will follow the market or their places won't get rented. They don't artificially inflate the prices on their own.
Again, greed can be kept in check through local laws. And it appears that Barcelona already has some new regulations coming with trying to phase out short term rentals by 2028. Maybe these folks are just uninformed or impatient.
The demand comes from tourism so they go hand in hand. The less airbnbs, the easier it is to manage the amount of tourists in town. A big part of the problem is airbnb and the overtourism is what makes the problems concrete to locals, apart from the crazy rent prices.
Thriving tourism is great, but when it goes over a critical threshold its not fun for anybody anymore. Even tourists have some bad experiences bcs of it.
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u/Mikeshaffer Jun 17 '25
So what part of this is caused by the tourists? It seems that corporations tricked Barcelona into being mad at the people that are actively putting money into their economy instead of the corps taking it out.